Taiwan's Pixart Reaps Camera Phone Boom
Taiwan's Pixart Imaging Inc., a designer of digital camera chips, expects 2004 revenue to grow well beyond its own forecast of 33 percent amid booming sales of camera-equipped cellphones, the firm's president said on Monday.
Pixart President Sen Huang also said the company aims to restart a stalled initial public offering in Taiwan by the end of the year, taking advantage of new securities regulations.
"We made about T$1.8 billion (US$5.3 million) revenue last year, and our internal business plan was for T$2.4 billion for this year," Huang told Reuters in a telephone interview. "But looking at our January-to-May revenues, the full year should be much more than that."
He pointed to sales of T$99 million in the first five months of the year, usually the slowest season for the electronics industry.
His confidence over mobile phone demand chimed with that of Japan's Seiko Epson Corp., which on Monday raised its annual net profit forecast by 35 percent on strong demand for its phone screens.
Though Pixart is a small company, its IPO is one of the local market's most keenly anticipated after revenue surged to T$1.83 billion last year, five times its 2002 turnover of T$365 million.
Pixart is the world's fourth-largest vendor of CMOS sensor chips, used in lower-definition digital cameras like those found in mobile phones and PC videoconferencing gear. The company ranks behind U.S. firm Omnivision Technologies Inc., Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Japan's Toshiba Corp. in CMOS sensor production.
The competing CCD sensor technology used in most digital still cameras provides higher picture quality but is more difficult to manufacture.
GROWTH "ALMOST FRIGHTENING"
About half of Pixart's revenues come from simple sensors used in optical computer mice but products used in mobile phones are the company's fastest-growing line.
"Camera phones are growing so fast that it is almost frightening, and from phones, cameras are spreading to other devices," Huang said.
"We expect that all notebook computers, not just high-end ones, will have a built-in cameras because they are just too inexpensive."
Pixart withdrew its IPO filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange earlier this year after complaints that one of its board members was not sufficiently independent as he was the chief financial officer of a company that potentially could be one of Pixart's suppliers.
It has since changed its board and Huang said Pixart would re-file its IPO in the fourth quarter, when the company can take advantage of new rules that will allow it to float new shares rather than old shares sold by existing shareholders.
"Basically we were not ready for all the paperwork," Huang said. "But now we have finished re-electing our board and we expect to re-file the papers in the fourth quarter."
Unlike many of its rivals, Pixart does not have its own manufacturing plants. The small firm manages to challenge its heavyweight rivals by outsourcing semiconductor production to Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (US$1=T$33.7)
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